Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored (A. Huxley)

Pakistan: 9-year-old Catholic girl raped by a Muslim

Gulfam (which means “like a flower”) is 9 years old (her surname is not revealed out of respect and decency to the family) and is enrolled in the third grade. She lives in village number 226 in the district of Tehsil Samundari. On 10 December she returned from school and her sister-in-law, wanting to make chapatti (bread used in Pakistan) sent her, along with her cousin of seven years, to collect wood in a nearby sugarcane field. After a short time the child came home and revealed that Gulfam had been taken and dragged by a man into that field. When relatives arrived on the ground they caught the man who abused the child red-handed, who immediately fled. Gulfam’s mother took the girl, half-naked, home. Then the parents went to the police and reported the rape. The man was arrested. But the family is terrified because the village is mainly Muslim. The relatives of the rapist have already tried to intimidate and threaten the family of Gulfam to withdraw the charges. The girl said the man had offered her money and at her refusal, he took her by force, taping over her mouth and raping her. He also told her “not to worry because he had done the same service to other young Christian girls.”